June 13, 2006	Tuesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 16, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, June 12: Speakers at a seminar here on Monday criticised South Asian governments, including that of Pakistan, for ignoring the worsening conditions of overseas workers and urged them to address the situation.

Speaking at the seminar on ‘Transmigrant Women of South Asia’, organized by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), renowned researcher Dr Robina Bhatti lamented that South Asian states had become “exporters of people” rather than of goods and services.

Dr Robina Bhatti of California State University, US, gave a detailed account of transmigrant women of South Asia. Based on her research work conducted in South Asian countries i.e. Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh, she shared the findings of her project and put forth some suggestions to address the issues of those women by their native countries.

Drawing a comparative analysis of the labour policies of South Asian countries, she said they were mainly focused on the increase of remittances rather than welfare of the overseas labour.

Dr Robina said Sri Lanka comparatively had a good system for overseas workers than its counterparts in the region.

She also raised the issue of lack of credible national data on overseas workers in the South Asian countries. She said all South Asian countries had some kind of facilities for overseas workers but the workers still complained about the absence of these facilities.

She also lamented the role of South Asian countries that had failed to take the issue of bad working conditions with the host countries, adding that in many cases the overseas workers are working in worst conditions than their native countries.

Her study also examined the productive and reproductive economies of South Asia through the livelihoods of migrants.

Examining the biopolitics of the “export of labour”, she said it helped us to understand not only transnational interconnections that were gendered, but also uncovered the class, racial, ethnic, and in some cases, religious features embedded in social relations in our hierarchical world economy and South Asian region.